Thanks.Originally Posted by theundeadhero
Seasons 1 and 2 were by far the best, they seemed to know what they were doing more, and it felt more like My Little Pony (i.e closer to the older versions, which FIM really wasn't that much of a departure from). Both seasons have good ideas, but it's lacking in places for me. I am reviewing episodes (I've only uploaded two so far) so I will cover it more in them.
Okay, here's my report on BUCK, but be warned - it is LONG (please be respectful to the length, if you don't want to read it all in one go, you don't have to).
Before I begin, I must explain that due to the distance and (I think)
ticket types I was unable to the "Summer Sun Celebration"
and also I had to leave before Sunday properly ended, but I still got
the majority of Saturday and Sunday, and in one word it was AWESOME!!
But in order to begin at the beginning, you would not believed how
hyped up I was for this the entire week - I was like the Mane Six on
the way to the Grand Galloping Gala back in season 1, but thankfully
that is where the metaphor ends, because unlike the Gala, BUCK did not
disappoint, and was just as awesome (and in places more awesome) than
expected. Note: There's a chance the word "awesome" will be overused.
It was overwhelming when I first got there, and there was a part of me
that felt like the odd one out, as I didn't have anything "ponyfied"
about my clothing while the others ranged from simply having pony
related clothing on, to being in cosplay, be it semi-humanized
versions of characters (nothing to do with Equestria Girls, I think -
bronies have done this before) to being fully decked out in costume.
Thankfully the majority of people there were very welcoming and
talkative, that I didn't feel like a sore thumb for very long - in
fact, they were how bronies are supposed to act, actually being a
community of friendship, so I was really pleased by this.
In the vendor (which I was in and out of, so there's no direct part of
the story all of this belongs to) there was a karaoke machine loaded
with pony songs that every so often people would gather round and sing
a long with and some beautiful artwork on sale, which I loved going
around to see - it was like being in a live version of DeviantArt or
something (after choosing to search for ponies of course). At one
point I and another brony got a chance to sing together on the karaoke
with "At the Gala" being the chosen song (though everyone joins in so
you are always part of the song, even if it's not you holding the
mic). It wasn't just songs from the show, but songs that fans had made
as well, which I admit I wasn't that familiar with, but I still had
fun hearing them. A lot of people were carrying their own ponies
around as well, but these appeared to have been brought from home,
which I did not think to do (at the time of this convention, I owned a Rarity plushie), and sadly there did not appear to be any ponies on sale (save for some “Discorded” versions of the Mane Six,
and a Rainbow Dash plushie that was part of a raffle), so it seemed
that unless I could get some serious bidding down at the auction, or I
won the raffle; my Rarity would sadly not be getting a new friend just yet…
I did however end up buying an artwork of the following; Alicorn
Twilight, Celestia and Luna, and Rainbow Dash in a trainee uniform.
The artists themselves were very friendly and talkative, and you could
tell they were pleased to hear comments about their art (and
understanding enough if I was unsure if I could buy anything as there
was so much to choose from). I even ended up chatting with one artist
about a G1 pony of all things (as she had done a beautiful painting of
that pony) however, I did not think to buy anything from her until
Sunday.
The first event I attended was called "Word Crimes" which was an in
depth look at fanfiction writing and why we are motivated to do things
like that. At the beginning, one of the speakers confirmed it be the
fanfiction discussion, and someone in the audience jokingly(?) said
that she thought it was the cupcake making event, and I'm afraid I
couldn't resist saying "But that is a fanfiction, isn't it?" which got
a massive reaction from the other bronies, including the speakers
(for those who don't know, "Cupcakes" is a self-mocking spoof horror
fanfiction made as a joke, that has been exaggerated in its infamy),
but all jokes a side, it was very helpful and informative to hear what
they had to say.
After that it was a talk hosted by a group of brony musicians, and
what goes in to creating music, and as someone who loves a very wide
variety of music it was very interesting to hear from them, and it was
cool how some of them had been involved in the fandom for some time,
and they were fun to watch as they joked around with each other (at
one point one of them playfully threw something at the other because
of his answer – though at this moment I can’t remember what he said.).
Throughout the talk, they kept plugging a CD entitled “Now That’s What
I Call Horse Music” (which I, for some reason didn’t end up getting,
but I might check it out when I can). This was jokingly advertised
several times, and continued to be a running joke throughout the
convention.
Note: There’s also a chance that the throwing happened in the
fanfiction one, and I just remembered it wrong as there was so much
going on and I was still overwhelmed at this point – it could even be that I’m thinking of the Voice Acting panel, as I can confirm that someone did get a bottle thrown at him for getting a voice actor wrong).
Next up was the auction, where as I said, I hoped to acquire a new
friend for Rarity, as well as whatever else looked interesting.
However, I soon saw that I was out of my depth, as the first item
alone; a Derpy plushie, shot up to either £80 or £800 pounds before
she was sold, and with the next item (this time it wasn’t a pony, but
I honestly can’t remember what it it was) also shooting up in high
price range, I knew I was not going to have any luck here. So I
retired to the gaming area where I just played some Street Fighter for
a bit. Not at all pony related, but it was all I could think to do.
There was also a Smash Bros tournament that I put my name down for,
but for whatever reason, I ended up not doing it (I think I went to
get some food by the time it was on, and there was such a long list I
didn’t think they’d get to me anytime soon, plus I would’ve sucked
anyway). I am sure that this was one of the many times I wondered the
vendor looking at the art, and deciding what I could buy.
Eventually, it was time for the Cosplay Show, which took place in the
Main Hall (not spelled as “Mane Hall”? Okay…) which was fun to see,
as the cosplayers were quite varied in how their costumes were done,
as mentioned earlier as well as a mixture of real My Little Pony
characters and OCs, and at one point a group of cosplayers all played one OC by
all dressing in matching colors and standing in formation, and holding
up pictures for the face, it was pretty cool. Some of the cosplayers
did some rollplaying as well, alternating between actual scenes from
the show, or basically doing their own thing
(which sometimes still made sense based on what
we know in the show). Even the ones who were on their own would
sometimes do a bit of acting - there was a Blueblood cosplayer who
behaved completely in character, and was jokingly booed off by the
bronies. There was also one cosplayer (who threw a beach ball into the audience, and it kept being
bounced around, with the cosplay announcer saying that “it should
never touch the ground” (it never came to me, though) and at one point
a second beach ball appeared, with no one (including the announcer)
knowing where it came from – another Discord cosplayer appeared on
stage at the same time as when the second beach ball appeared, which I
found ironic as it’s a character makes random things happen for no
reason (I kind of regret not saying something like “He did it!” when
the announcer was acting puzzled about the second beach ball, but by
the time I thought about it, it was too late). Note: a video uploaded by someone on this site (I won’t say if you don’t want me to) reveals where the second ball came from).
Saturday was rounded up perfectly with “The Lunar Eclipse” which was
an all out dance that more than made up for the fact that I couldn’t
attend the Summer Sun Celebration, and the closing ceremony. With
some awesome sounding music, and an equally awesome atmosphere it was
just so much fun being there, as a good celebration of music is my
kind of thing. It wasn’t completely pony related, but it was
basically a selection of remixes of various songs and I could hear the
talent involved in compiling it all (there were several, presumably
brony DJs taking turns), and as well as dancing there was a lot of
balloon catching, and bro hoofing, and like I said a great way to end
my Saturday. As awesome as it was, I didn’t stay to the exact end
though, and with the awesomeness of the ponies in my mind, I retired
to my hotel for some sleep (and even then I wasn’t exactly pony-free
as I even had a mild dream about some ponies) to basically recharge for
tomorrow.
Then it was Sunday, and once again, I was free to roam the vendors in
between events, where I was able to get a painting of Majesty (a G1
pony who is supposed to be a very important pony, but was bizarrely
never animated into the show – even though her castle was) as well as
a painting of Rainbow Dash and Firefly racing from the artist I was
chatting to about G1 the day before, as well as a signed drawing of
Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust racing or flying. I also managed to
find at last, a new friend for Rarity – in the form of Pinkie Pie, who
was suddenly on sale despite being nowhere to be found the day before.
The first main event was the “Crazy Music For Crazy Ponies”, which was
all about improv music (basically seeing if you can make music out of
assorted sound clips), and how it can all be created and edited
together in fun ways – there was a lot of messing with the speed and
frequency of clips and sounds used, and apparently there’s a CD on the
way with the cover being designed on set by them getting the audience
to say random things based on madlibs style prompts, to decide what
was going to be featured, and the cover art we ended up with was a bit peculiar, which I’m
sure is the point of what I’m sure is going to be an intentionally
whacky CD. (Note: as far as I can see, this CD still hasn’t actually appeared)
Also on Sunday I attended a talk about animation and someone had to
put together a felt animation as it was being done (in which Maud Pie ended
up dying, but you could tell it was done as a self-mocking joke, and
no hate was involved) the animation
itself purposely made very little effort to take itself seriously what
with day suddenly turning to night (a joke on the fact that someone
kept turning the lights on and off) and Maud acquiring a fedora in
mid-scene for no reason.
Next up was a talk on voice acting which was both interesting and
inspiring, and I even got to ask a question at the voice actors panel
(At least, I think I did, I remember approaching one of them at the end, unless I’m thinking of something else)
about how to handle voice acting if most of the voice actors are
likely to be met online – the advice was simple enough; get Skype, and
make sure the voice actors have it too, then they can be directed as
if they were there. It was also fun hearing about how to really do
voice acting, the key advice they gave everyone being “remember the
“acting” part” so if you ever want to take a stab at voice acting,
remember to act as though you are doing what your character is doing –
the example they gave was “If your character is swinging a sword when
he speaks, act as though you are swinging a sword” (they did warn you
to not hit the mic, though) as that’s the only way to really make your
voice sound right, and if your character has to scream, you will have
to scream properly – pretending to scream (a “whisper scream” they
called it) just damages your vocals, and it sounds really bad on
recordings, and my favorite piece of advice they gave was the all too
obvious “Don’t be scared of looking silly while doing the voices –
because no one will be able to see you”.
The next event took place in the Main Hall, and was awesome – it was a
presentation run by Dave, an actual writer for MLP: FIM. He basically
took us through the ins and outs of creating an episode for FIM and
how it all gets put together, as well as how he approaches writing,
and it was really informative, and as I have already shown you, it’s on YouTube now. He also answered questions from the audience, which were touch
and go, as he couldn’t really answer too much about episodes he had no
involvement in at all (he is, after all, just one writer) but gave
good insight into the ones he had, and gave me another way of looking
at the episode “Daring Don’t” (which I actually haven’t seen, but know
the general idea behind it) as well as learn some basic ideas about
writing and how things are done. Dave was also very calm and
professional with his audience; one brony apparently hated “Twilight
Time” (which I also haven’t seen) stating it to be the worst episode
ever, and asking a series of questions all of which could have been
shortened to just a simple “What were you thinking?!” he took it
professionally, and responded without losing his cool, which was
pretty admirable. (Note: as Cloudane said, the brony probably wasn’t trying to cause trouble)
One highlight for me was Dave’s advice to beating writer’s block (as a writer, I’ve been there)
and that advice is as follows; If you have writer’s block, don’t focus
on the fact that you do (in fact, try not to even think of it as
“writer’s block”) but instead go and do something that you know
inspires you – watch a movie that inspires you, listen to a song that
inspires you, do whatever it is that you do that inspires you, just
don’t get hung up on what you’re not getting done, and you’ll find
that it will help you. I am totally doing that, when I get writer’s
block again. (just watch the video, he puts it much better than I do)
There was one question (I forget which one) which Dave had a hard time
answering, and he just sort of froze on stage in one position looking
like he’d died standing up or something – this lead to the guy sitting
next to me to joke that Dave must have “Got writer’s block”.
During all this, the Rainbow Dash raffle was getting ready to take
place, and I knew that if I wanted to see all of Dave’s presentation,
I would have to miss-out (I signed my email address, so if I did win I
would be informed later if I was unavailable) and sure enough, when I
returned from the Main Hall, Dashie was gone. I have yet to receive
an email so I doubt I won, but it’s okay as I had already acquired
Pinkie by then, and I knew that Rainbow Dash can find another way to my
home one day.
And she has! I got her sometime after BUCK, but I managed to find Rainbow Dash at a shop while I was on holiday, so I got her after all (always kind of hoped I’d find Dashie in a box on the street or something personally – sorry I’m afraid I actually love that fanfiction)
I then had a choice of two events to round-up my awesome weekend, and
it was between a Digital Art thing (which was what I had planned on
seeing) and “Who’s Show is it Anyway?” (as spoof of “Who’s Line is it
Anyway?” which I have never seen) but having heard people talk about
it, I checked out the latter, and it was kind of fun; the people doing
it had to act out the scene while changing the genre during the scene
(it was the same scene all the way through, but it kept changing genre
but kept the original scene). The first thing they acted out was
hosting a disastrous (non pony) convention or something that had taken
place in real life, but as they did the second event (which I think
vaguely involved ponies) I had kind of gotten the point, and went to
check the Digital Art, which was much more interesting as we basically
saw an artist (who I bought some drawings of) design a pony in a
computer program, but unfortunately I arrived too late to know what
program she used. Doh!
With all that done, it was time to say goodbye to BUCK, with fond
memories and full inspiration in my mind. My first pony convention
was awesome, and I am totally going to go to more if I can.
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